Abstract

Determined whether the growth of the bacterium Escherichia coli can be psychokinetically accelerated and decelerated during a 24-hr period with Ss not known to be psychically gifted. Each of 60 college students was tested in a single run consisting of a set of 3 tubes of bacterial culture to be growth-promoted, a set of 3 to be growth-inhibited, and a set of 3 to serve as controls. Findings indicate that the growth was greater in the promoted tubes than in either the controls or the inhibited tubes. Post hoc analyses showed that the intersubject variance in growth was (1) greater between the 3 treatments than within them and (2) greater in both the promoted and the inhibited tubes than in the controls. Results indicate that bacterial growth was psychokinetically accelerated in some of the tubes intended for growth promotion and psychokinetically retarded in some of the tubes intended for growth inhibition. (9 ref)